


Clear Skies Full of Rain

by misura



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: In which everyone is quite miserable until Miss Rosalie takes action.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rimedio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rimedio/gifts).



The first few times when Flavian had invited him to go hiking, Mordecai had refused. He knew that there were many Flavian wanted to ask him, and while Mordecai felt that perhaps these were things that Flavian deserved to know, he could not help but worry that perhaps these were also things that would make Flavian wish that he had not asked to know them after all.

Mordecai told himself that he was being kind, even noble, in refusing Flavian's invitations. Deep down inside, he knew that it was not true, but it was far nicer to think of himself as someone who was being kind than it was to think of himself as someone who was ashamed and afraid.

Before Mordecai had gone to London, he and Flavian had become very fast friends. Flavian had taken Mordecai hiking, which was his favorite thing to do, and Mordecai, in return, had tried to teach Flavian about cricket, which Flavian did not seem to have any talent for.

They had talked often, about all sorts of things. Whenever possible, they had worked or studied together. Sometimes, when they had stayed up late, they would spend the night in each other's rooms, even though the distance between their rooms was not all that great.

Now, they hardly spoke at all - Mordecai, because he was too afraid, and Flavian, because he felt that it might be best for them to talk in private and Mordecai kept refusing his invitations.

It was a situation that was making both of them unhappy, and it seemed like there was no solution for it.

 

"I think that the way you've been treating poor Flavian is perfectly beastly," said Miss Rosalie. "And after we all argued against the police taking you away and throwing you in prison, too!"

She and Mordecai were sitting in a room in the castle where people sometimes had tea in the afternoon. They had been discussing a project that Gabriel had asked them to work on together.

Thus, Mordecai had not been expecting the subject of Flavian to come up. He felt that it was rather unfair for Miss Rosalie to have inserted her comment into their conversation like that.

"I haven't the least notion what you're talking about," he said, which was a lie. Because he knew Miss Rosalie would probably know it was a lie as well, he added, "For that matter, neither do you."

Miss Rosalie looked triumphant. "See? You know very well what it is you are doing. What a hateful, ungrateful, rotten person you are."

To any other person save Gabriel, Mordecai might have replied that in actuality, he did not know at all what it was he was doing. Yet while he did not mind Miss Rosalie calling him hateful, ungrateful and rotten, he did not wish for her to call him foolish.

"I never asked you to plead for me," he said. "If you regret it now, well, that is your own fault. It has nothing to do with me."

"I do regret it," said Miss Rosalie. "You ought to have been punished for what you have done, or else how can anyone know that you will not do it again?"

Mordecai did not think that Gabriel or anyone else would ever again trust him as completely as they had before. He did not blame them in the slightest. He was not at all sure that he trusted himself.

This, too, was something he would die before telling Miss Rosalie. "I imagine that some people are simply more capable of understanding and trusting other people than you are. Of course, in all the time you have been working here, you have never made any mistakes at all."

"At least I know when someone is trying to be my friend and when someone is simply being horrible," said Miss Rosalie. "I dare say Flavian would be happy to act as if you had done nothing wrong whatsoever. And here you are, ignoring and insulting him, when you should be begging his forgiveness."

Mordecai rose. He was angry. He knew that Miss Rosalie was not wrong to have spoken to him as she had, but it still made him angry that she acted as if she knew everything that was going on.

"If that is how you feel, why, I suppose that I shall go now and do that, shall I? Anything is better than staying here and listen to you to carry on about things you know nothing about."

"Ha!" said Miss Rosalie. "As if you would."

"I would," replied Mordecai. "More: I will. Good day."

And he left the room to go look for Flavian.

 

Flavian was in the middle of a project of his own when Mordecai found him. Two of the gardeners were assisting him, keeping a wary eye on a small tree. There were a great many nuts on the floor, as if they had been pelting each other with them.

"If you are not too busy, I should like to go hiking with you tomorrow," said Mordecai. He was still too angry to feel embarrassed or afraid. "I can see that you are occupied this afternoon."

Flavian's expression went from vaguely puzzled to cautiously delighted. "Certainly."

"Thank you," said Mordecai. His anger was fading. Being near Flavian had always made him feel calmer, happier. Without the anger, though, he was also beginning to feel afraid again.

Still, it was too late to take back his invitation. "Of course," Flavian said, smiling. "My pleasure. There are some lovely plants to see this time of year."

The gardeners were smiling as well, Mordecai noted. Of all the people in the room, only the tree was not.

"Until tomorrow, then," Mordecai said. He hoped the weather would not be too poor.

 

The weather the next morning was, in fact, poor, but not so bad that Flavian wished to stay inside. In truth, Mordecai could not recall any time when the weather had stopped Flavian from going hiking.

"It may clear up at any moment," was Flavian's comment when he saw the gathered rain clouds.

"Or start raining even worse," Mordecai replied. He disliked getting cold and wet, even though he hadn't minded as much when he had been with Flavian.

"Well, that's the English weather for you." Flavian chuckled. "I quite enjoy it, really, although I suppose it's different when you were hoping to play cricket, for example."

Mordecai did not think that not wishing to return to the castle soaked and shivering had anything to do with enjoying cricket. "I expect that it will be some time before they'll let me play again."

Flavian looked surprised. "Why?"

"Oh, I simply haven't felt like playing lately," Mordecai lied. "I'm quite out of practice. I fear that I wouldn't give a good showing at all."

Flavian shrugged. "Who cares about a good showing? As long as you are enjoying yourself, that's the most important thing, isn't it? I certainly don't let the fact that I'm terrible stop me from playing."

"Well, I have a certain reputation," said Mordecai. He meant for it to be a joke. He had always liked to tease Flavian about not being good at cricket, just like Flavian had liked to tease him in return about taking what was only a game far too seriously.

After all that had happened though, the joke fell a little flat. Everybody in the Castle knew that Mordecai had betrayed them, and while nearly everyone agreed that he had redeemed himself, after, it seemed to Mordecai that nobody quite looked at him as they had before.

In truth, some people did not, but most people were just as happy to pretend that everything had gone right back to the way it had been before.

"You can still come and watch though, can't you?" Flavian asked, sounding a little awkward.

Mordecai realized that Flavian was not going to ask any of the questions he had been so afraid of being asked. Unless Mordecai brought them up himself, Flavian would continue to talk about cricket, and the weather, and the plants that grew along the track that they had both seen hundreds of times before.

He thought that he should have felt relieved, but he did not feel relieved at all.

"I suppose that I can do that much, yes," he said. "There's nothing like cricket in Series Eleven, you know. Hardly any sort of sports or games whatsoever."

"Lucky for you that they sent you here." Flavian smiled.

Mordecai imagined all the questions Flavian wanted to ask trapped behind that smile, struggling and wriggling to get out. He knew that Flavian would not let them. He had never needed to be afraid of Flavian's questions.

The only thing he had only ever needed to be afraid of were his own answers, and how they might change Flavian's perception of him - and that was the silliest thing of all to have been afraid of.

"I got to see some good cricket in London, though," he went on. "In between making a mess of things."

Flavian nodded slowly. "I expect that there are some very good cricketeers in London."

"A mess." Mordecai wanted to talk about the cricket matches he'd seen in London. He knew that Flavian would listen attentively, and ask questions. It would be pleasant, to have that conversation. They might get back to the Castle without having talked about anything else. "That's not really the right word though, is it? I didn't make a mess. I did something far worse than that."

"I kept thinking that I was the one who'd made a mess," Flavian said softly. "That I had been the one to make a mistake when we - when I believed that you were my friend."

Mordecai swallowed. "Maybe you were right. I didn't mean to - but I did, and it's no good pretending that I didn't."

"Then I thought that it would be a very poor friend who only liked someone so long as they were perfect and never made a hash of things." Flavian's smile was a little sad. "Who knows? Perhaps the same would have happened to me, had I been sent in your place."

"Never," said Mordecai. The idea of Flavian ever betraying Chrestomanci was absurd.

"When you kept turning down my invitations, I thought that perhaps that was why. That you no longer felt that you had to pretend that you liked me," Flavian went on. "It took a stern talking-to from Rosalie to knock that idea out of my head."

"She's good at those, isn't she?" Mordecai sighed. Now that she was not around, he felt himself inclined to think more kindly of Miss Rosalie. "You are my best friend. You have always been that, and the simple truth is that I have done nothing whatsoever to deserve it."

"That is neither simple nor true, I think," Flavian said. "I think that human feelings are quite complicated things, and as to the notion that you or anyone else would need to deserve them - why, that is not how feelings work at all. I will grant you that the more time you spent in someone's company, the clearer your feelings may become, and obviously, sometimes people may stop liking one another, but the notion that you are under some sort of obligation to me simply because I like you is very silly."

Mordecai frowned, trying to put his finger on the weak point in Flavian's reasoning. He knew there was one; he only needed to find it.

"In fact," Flavian went on, "it is almost as silly as me feeling that simply because you made a bad mistake, that made you any less my friend."

"You are the least silly person I know," Mordecai said. "Don't you dare think differently."

"I enjoy long walks in the rain," Flavian pointed out. "Most people would call that at least a little bit silly."

"Well." Mordecai knew that they would need to talk more later, about Series Eleven, and what he had done in London, but he also knew now that no matter what he said, it wouldn't make Flavian any less his friend. Mordecai might not deserve him to be, only that did not matter in the slightest. "Some people like swimming. That means getting soaked through and through, too. Or bathing."

Flavian smiled. There was nothing even a bit sad about it this time.


End file.
